


Ties

by kitncat



Series: Keithtober 2018 [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonds, Day 3, Keithtober 2018, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 06:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16192424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitncat/pseuds/kitncat
Summary: Based on Keithtober 2018 Day 3: BondsAlternate Canon AU/A reflection of Keith's bonds with his teammates.





	Ties

Keith smiled, the gentle night breeze ruffling his hair.  He let out a silent breath, thoughts flicking through his mind as he slowly sorted the chaos that they were.

Slowly, he tracked the chaos back to a time so far away now - to a still-familiar face even though he was so different now.

A then-black haired man named Takashi Shirogane, with a warm and hopeful smile as the older handed him something he had never had since his father.  A chance.  Someone to believe in him, that he was more then what he was told he would be.  Somehow all the walls and traps and everything else Keith had built up around his heart to keep people out after his father's death had all come tumbling down the second Shiro showed faith in him.  It was Shiro's gentle guidance, Keith had come to know, that would set the younger's feet on this path.  It was that instant faith in him, an insistence that Keith  _could_ be more, that had driven Keith.  The gentle reprimands filled with understanding, the carefree days stolen without care, that bond that Keith had been so scared to form that Shiro had built slowly and without Keith even realizing it.  Somehow they had ended up here, captain of the Atlas and Black Paladin - and so much more to each other.

A beaming young woman flitted into Keith's mind, smiling face belonging to none other than Pidge.  Whether her name was Katie or Pidge, she would always be Pidge to him.  Level-headed to a point he could never hope to be and always ready to give a helping hand, she had been the first of the other three Paladins to give him a chance.  Somehow she had seen past prickly barriers and found her way into Keith's heart.  And - kill him if it was a lie - if anyone ever hurt her he'd kill them himself.  From her warm smile to endless optimism, she had forced her way in like one of the viruses she'd give the enemy Galra ships and Keith, who was less than pleased at the time, was more then happy to admit to it now, and to call her his sister if Matt would let him.

There was always Hunk too.  The Coalition-renowned chef and the man with a heart impossibly big, Keith would be lying to say he didn't get frustrated with the Yellow Paladin at times but...  That's what happened when you got attached to someone who put heart over head (though wasn't that the same thing he did with Shiro?).  Hunk hadn't even really tried to get in, he'd just been himself, calm, gentle, and kind and without either realizing Keith had let him in and locked him inside the bramble walls of his heart, carefully guarding the bonds he'd formed.  Honestly, Keith had accepted, if there was anyone he could go to with sensitive problems other than Shiro, it had to be Hunk.

Then, Keith thought, there was Lance, with a cocky attitude and an ability to be annoying like no one else Keith had met.  Yet there was a gentleness to their teasing now, a brotherly jab here, a childish gibe there, rather then the all-out rivals they'd started as.  Somehow the unbearable Blue Paladin (not to mention the cockiest kid Keith had ever met other then James Griffin back in the day) had weaseled his way in to join the rest of Keith's bonds to the Paladins of Voltron.  Boy, had it annoyed Keith when he first realized he actually  _cared_ about Lance, before he realized he was slowly growing to appreciate and even enjoy the Paladin's company - even their bickering became lighter and playful most of the time.  He almost chuckled aloud at the thought.

Undeniably, there was Allura - who was just too stubborn  _not_ to eventually form a bond with the Red-then-Black Paladin.  With her often misguiding sweetness and naivety she'd slowly come to accept Keith despite his Galra heritage and he'd slowly come to accept her and her rather harsh views of all Galra in general.  After she'd let go of her prejudices, she'd welcomed him warmly and seemed like an older sister.  Of course, then the whole Shiro-clone fiasco happened and he'd left Voltron completely.  But when he'd returned, she had seemed to be the first one to welcome him back.

He'd be lying if he said he didn't see Coran as the weird space uncle of the group.  The semi-crazy and hard-to-understand Altean had been welcoming to him before and after everything that had happened and it surprised Keith to think about how long it had had taken before he truly accepted and acknowledged the bond that he had with Coran.  But still, he wouldn't deny it now - even if it did result in a huge embarrassment at times.

There was Lotor as well.  The only other half-Galra Keith had ever really gotten to know.  Despite their initial distrust of each other (really, it was Keith's fault for accusing him so quickly of being a liar), the two had managed to move past that and rather quickly found a common ground.  This common ground easily came from their shared loyalties to the other Paladins and Allura, as well as the cause they  fought for.  But one thing leads to another and before anyone could believe it the two had formed a respect for each other that quickly grew into a friendship, edged with half-concealed threats from Keith's end of "hurt her and you'll regret it".  But they had a bond regardless.

Finally, Keith's thoughts were drawn to his mother.  Absent from the first nineteen years of his life and leaving him an orphan at one point, she had proven herself to have his back.  Despite his initial hesitance to let her in, scared she'd disappear again, he had grown to treasure his mother and consider her an irreplaceable part of his team and family.  The way the others accepted her touched Keith's heart in a way they would never really understand, and there was a part of him that treasured the bond that formed - even if it didn't feel like a proper mother-son bond.

Keith chuckled to himself, so many bonds to so many people.  So many people he'd die to protect, that he loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't kill me for not including the wolf or Kolivan! I'm sorry! *hides*


End file.
